


This Is a Story About Control

by GrayJay



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 14:43:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4439783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayJay/pseuds/GrayJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You have:<br/>Glasses that are the only thing between you and the end of the world.<br/>A knack for being invisible. A face that says <em>nonthreatening</em>.<br/>Half a dozen stories about where you came from and where you’re going that you’re pretty sure no one ever believes.<br/>A list of everything you’ve stolen written down on a crumpled sheet of notebook paper, so that someday you can pay it all back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is a Story About Control

**Author's Note:**

> Chinese: http://yothisbluntsforyou.lofter.com/post/1e52bdcf_f56fb83  
> French: https://pleasantlyatomiccolor.tumblr.com/post/160720092222/cest-une-histoire-de-contrôle-a-french

This is a story about control.

 

You have:

One parachute.

Parents who promise you that everything will be okay.

A brother you cling to like the lifeline neither of you has.

 

You’ll forget all of this, later; until you remember it.

 

The first time you wake up, you’re tangled in the remains of a parachute, and you drag yourself to the surface like it’s water, tearing through charred and tattered silk. Alex is there, and he’s crying, yelling at you to stay awake. There’s something in your eyes, and your head hurts, and everything is too bright even though it’s night.

You’ll forget that, too.

 

The second time you wake up, you can’t see anything, and when you try to open your eyes, there’s something pressing against them. You reach up, feel gauze, try to pull it away, but your fingers won’t do what you tell them, and all you can think to do is run.

Someone finds you on the floor, and you try to tell them that you have to find your brother; and then everything goes soft around the edges, and all you want to do is sleep.

 

You don’t remember when it becomes a routine. Wake up. Fight. Run. Fall.

By the time you finally make it to the door, you’ve forgotten why you needed to.

You wonder if it would be easier if you could see. You remember that something bad will happen if you pull the gauze off your face, but you can’t remember what. You wonder if maybe your eyes are gone, and no one is telling you; but you think you can still feel them when you press your fingers against your face, convex beneath gauze and pads.

 

Sometimes you remember that your brother is dead. You repeat it to yourself before you go to sleep at night, because it’s easier to wake up knowing than to have to learn all over again.

You remember that your parents are dead, too, but you don’t remember why. You don’t remember much about them at all.

You think it’s probably better that way.

 

Eventually, someone replaces the bandages with glasses, their weight unfamiliar on your face.

You open your eyes.

You see red.

 

This is a story about control.

 

You have:

Glasses you know you can never, ever, ever take off or something terrible will happen, even if you can’t remember what. You shower carefully, eyes squeezed closed.

Clothes that aren’t really yours.

A best friend who sometimes doesn’t seem like a friend at all, but it’s not like you have much frame of reference.

More scars than you can make sense of.

Holes in your memory that you’re afraid to look at too closely.

 

You fall, and suddenly half a building is gone, and you’re fumbling for your glasses in the wet grass, eyes squeezed shut. People are yelling. You don’t even try to make out the words.

You find your glasses.

You run.

 

On the street, there’s always something to be afraid of. Fear pushes everything else out of your mind: time, memories, wants.

You keep your eyes closed as much as you can. Tape your glasses on. Steal a cap, and wear it low over your face.

 

You don’t know if anyone is looking for you.

You hope so. You hope not.

You wonder what they’ll do to you if they catch you. Send you to jail, probably. Or back to the orphanage, and that scares you more than jail, more than anything, even if you can’t remember why.

You keep running.

 

This is a story about control.

 

You have:

Glasses that are the only thing between you and the end of the world.

A knack for being invisible. A face that says _nonthreatening_.

Half a dozen stories about where you came from and where you’re going that you’re pretty sure no one ever believes.

A list of everything you’ve stolen written down on a crumpled sheet of notebook paper, so that someday you can pay it all back.

 

It must be winter, because the snow is heavy and greying on the ground, and you’ve forgotten what it’s like not to be cold all the time.

The cabin draws you in like a beacon. It’s the light in the window, maybe; the promise of warmth. All you know is that you need to find something, someone; and the need hooks deep and _pulls_ with so much force it’s almost physical.

The feeling is familiar. You can’t remember why.

 

You think that maybe you could get away, if you took off your glasses and opened your eyes, but you’ve seen what that does--to buildings, to vault doors. You can imagine what it would do to a man, even a man as strong as this one. You decide that you’re not going to let him turn you into a killer.

The more choices you make, the easier it is to believe that this is something that you are doing, not something that is happening to you.

 

In the end, he turns you into a killer.

“It’s not your fault,” says the man who rescues you, without opening his mouth. You don’t know who he is, but he knows your name. “You didn’t have a choice.

You hate the feeling of someone else’s voice in your head.

You can’t find the words to explain why you need him to be wrong.

 

Fear is a reflex, a fist cramped from clenching, but in the quiet and relative safety of the mansion, it begins to relax its grip. Other things fill the spaces it clears.

 

You remember:

How to ask questions.

How to want things.

Falling, but not when, or from where.

Waking up on the ground. Waking up in the hospital.

A little more about your mother, or more than you remember having remembered before.

 

There are other things you remember that you know can’t possibly be real. That scares you almost as much as the energy behind your eyes.

 

“Can you fix me?” you ask the Professor.

You’re not sure if you’re talking about your eyes, or the jumble of memories hovering just out of your reach. Both, maybe.

He can’t fix your eyes, he tells you--not yet--but maybe he can help sort out your memory.

You have been in his house for months now, but it’s the first time you’ve given him permission to reach past the surface of your mind. As he stirs through your thoughts, memories rise like silt in a tide. You’re not prepared for the force with which they pull you in. You are not prepared for how many there are.

 

When everything settles, you’re surprised at how much is still missing, how many of the jagged pieces don’t quite connect.

The Professor will explain that telepathy, however powerful, can’t entirely bypass physical brain damage.

Years later, he will tell you that he also found artificial alterations to your memories, too precise to be byproducts of the accident. That some were probably achieved via traditional methods of brainwashing. That others were not.

Later still, it will finally occur to you to wonder whether all of the missing memories were gone by the time he got there.

 

This is a story about control.

 

Charles Xavier gives you: Clothes. Food. Shelter.

Charles Xavier gives you: your family back, as much as anyone can.

Charles Xavier gives you: a home.

Charles Xavier gives you: a purpose.

 

The visor makes your mutation into a tool: a scalpel rather than a wrecking ball. It seals around your eyes and sits heavy and close around your face. Its weight feels safe: strong enough to hold even you.

You understand what you’re training for. That eventually, you’re going to hurt someone again. You trust the Professor when he tells you that what you are doing is important. That you are part of something larger than yourself. That you will do the right thing.

 

Once you get the kid safely to the car, once you’re sure no one is following, you trade in the visor for glasses.

“What you’re feeling right now,” you tell Bobby, “It’ll pass.”

He doesn’t say anything.

 

Bobby is: A stark and continual reminder of what you’re not.

 

You have:

A roommate with wings.

A costume in colors you can’t see.

A crush that you won’t admit, even to yourself.

A team.

Friends, maybe.

 

You fight:

Magneto.

The Vanisher.

The Blob.

The Brotherhood.

Unus the Untouchable.

You fight your teammates in the Danger Room. Afterwards, Bobby punches you in the shoulder a little too hard and says, “What the _hell_ , Summers?” even though he knows you were just doing what the Professor told you.

“Perhaps there’s some truth to the axiom about not trusting a man who won’t look you in the eye,” says Hank.

You don’t bother to stick around for the debrief.

Later, Hank finds you in your room.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “That was thoughtless.”

“It’s fine,” you say.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says.

“I know,” you say.

“I really do trust you,” he says. “We all do.”

You want to say: _You shouldn’t trust me._

You want to say: _I don’t trust myself._

You want to say: _I never wanted to hurt anyone._

You want to say: _I can’t remember what blue looks like._

You want to say: _It’s not fair._

 

This is a story about control.

 

You say: “Thanks.”


End file.
